Mr. Speaker, the action taken by the Reform Party is extremely serious. I intend to prove how serious this action is, especially as, in consideration of some minor changes, it has gained the support of government members, of Liberal members.
To make sure that everybody knows what we are talking about, I believe we should read again part of the main motion before us.
That in the opinion of this House, this action by the Honourable Member for Charlesbourg, and the then Leader of the Official Opposition should be viewed as seditious and offensive to this House and constitutes a contempt of Parliament; and consequently, the House refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for examination.
To understand fully what is at stake, I took the trouble to check how two of the most commonly used dictionaries defined the word "sedition". According to Webster's it is "the stirring up of discontent, resistance, or rebellion against the government in power."
This concept of sedition refers also to sections of the Criminal Code because it is something extremely serious. Sections 59 to 62 of the Criminal Code give a more precise definition of what sedition is, and I quote: "Every one shall be presumed to have a seditious intention who teaches or advocates, or publishes or circulates any writing that advocates, the use, without the authority of law, of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within Canada."
It remains to be seen whether the charge laid by the Reform Party can be taken into consideration by this House in view of the fact that not only it is obviously grossly overstated, but also it does not refer to the action taken by my colleague, the member for Charlesbourg.
As proof, we only need to go back to the communiqué which is the object of the Reform Party's wrath. The fourth line of that text reads as follows, and I quote:
-MP for Charlesbourg, Mr. Jean-Marc Jacob, put forward his position today concerning the national defence policy of a sovereign Québec.
There is no deception whatsoever in that press release issued by the MP for Charlesbourg. It states the position of the Bloc Quebecois, a political party which is fully recognized, was democratically elected to this House with the support of 50 per cent of the Quebec population, and has some ideas on the eventual organization of the department of defence and of the defence system if sovereignty as it proposes it is ever accepted.
In publishing that press release, the MP for Charlesbourg never had any seditious, as the term says, intent of any kind. He did not try to propose the use of force against established order, with a view to overthrowing the government.
Someone deciding to commit a seditious action, to foment rebellion, would not do so openly and publicly and would not send a press release to all the journalists in the press gallery to explain what a sovereign Quebec would do.